


To an Extreme or Two

by Arrinconada_en_mi_Esquina



Category: Season 0 YGO, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Day 4: Guns and Roses, Day 5: Yu-Gi-Universe!, Gen, Some Violent content, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Month 2017, crossover AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrinconada_en_mi_Esquina/pseuds/Arrinconada_en_mi_Esquina
Summary: A Shadow Game between an angry psychic and a vengeful spirit.





	To an Extreme or Two

“They’re made of foam,” he explains, face half-contorted into a malicious grin. “Nothing but flat cut-outs made for a harmless game.”

“Why are they shaped like guns?” Aki asks. Her voice sounds foreign, even to herself: hard and emotionless despite the tremendous fear bubbling inside her. Divine had told her wearing the mask made her immune – and she had already tested its effectiveness a handful of times – but she still had yet to actually hear herself speak with it on.

“The game involves ‘shooting’ opponents,” he answers. He lifts his hand to her, holds out his index finger and thumb as if he were holding a gun, and aims at her face. “The players pretend to be crime lords who have worked together on heists and split the fortune equally. However, rumor has it that one of them has been playing the others for fools by taking more than their fair share. So the players hold a meeting to weed out the rat.”

“And kill him?”

He tilts his head and lowers his hand. He squints his red glowing eyes as he studies her. “Almost sounds like you already have someone in mind.”

“Him, her, them,” she shrugs. “I’m just putting a face on a blank.”

That’s not entirely true and she worries this other Yugi can tell. She has him in her sights, after all. But right now, they’re simply supposed to be talking about a game. Right now, this is supposed to be a casual, civil discussion – in spite of her mask, in spite of his glowing eyes, in spite of what happened.

“The premise of the story,” he continues, “is that each crime lord brings a personal treasure that can be corroborated as such by a person of mutual trust within the circle. Accusations and tensions run high, they run loud and they run bloody, until the traitor is finally executed and their treasure is claimed.”

She aims the foam gun at his head. “The rules?”

He nods at a round table in the dim-lit room. Aki approaches it while keeping the fake gun pointed in his direction. On the center of the table lies a stack of cards. She picks the one at the top.

“’No proof for now, but stay on alert,’” she reads out loud. She pulls the gun’s barrel away from him. “So you’re safe then.”

“Actually,” he moves towards the table and picks a card, “that card’s yours. Each player draws a card, looks at it and places it face-down on the table in front of them.”

He does this with his card and she follows suit with her own. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him shift swiftly. She calmly turns to face him and sees that he’s aiming a foam gun cut-out at her.

“And then?”

“Then each player takes turns accusing another of being the culprit. They aim their gun and make their case. Then the accused is given a chance to present a counter-argument in their defense. The rest of the players vote on whether or not they believe the accusation. If most of them do, then the accused’s card is flipped and based on what it reads, the accuser may shoot or withdraw. A player loses if they are shot three times or if their flipped card ends up being a confession. ”

Aki flips her card.

**‘NO PROOF FOR NOW, BUT STAY ON ALERT’**

The other Yugi lowers his foam gun.

“The card is discarded after being flipped over and the accused draws a new card from the deck.”

Aki draws another card, and holds it to the side of her body without looking at it. She takes aim at him again. “What if the other players aren’t convinced?”

“If most of the players don’t buy into your accusation, you may not shoot the accused. Instead, your turn ends and it becomes another player’s turn to make their case. In the event of there being an equal amount of players that believe the claim versus those that don’t, the accuser and the accused play a quick tie breaker. Can be anything from playing rock-paper-scissors to flipping coins. Whoever wins the tie breaker gets to shoot the other without flipping any cards. In the event of a tie, both get shot.”

“Can’t really trust a traitor to play fair, though,” she says.

“There are penalties,” he says. “Though, they vary with the severity of the cheater’s action.”

She twirls the card in her fingers but doesn’t dare look at it yet. He’s not trying to look at it either; he just stares at her with a thrilled, unflinching look.

“We’re going to need more players than just the two of us,” she says.

“You already know why we’re here, don’t you?” he says. “No need for story premises about thieves between the two of us.”

“I am not a thief.”

“But you _are_ a criminal,” he remarks. “There won’t be more players, but we _will_ have a jury of sorts. That’s something I can provide fairly if you’re willing to accept this invitation.”

“Just so you know, I don’t have time for children’s games,” she goads. “You either make this serious or I walk away.”

“That’s what I hoped to hear. It’s game time.”

It feels as though the room blurs and warps ever so briefly. In that moment, she realizes the room is partially bigger than before. All the windows have vanished along with the door.

 _More of his tricks,_ she thinks. _Doesn’t matter. His powers don’t compare to this ghastly mark._

They both take a seat at the table across from each other. She finally looks at the card she had drawn; it’s blank. Doesn’t matter. She ignores her hammering heartbeats and steadily places the card face-down in front of her.

A golden box has materialized on the table, right next to him. He pats it twice and holds his hand to it, staring quietly at it.

“Here is my treasured possession,” he speaks lowly. After the brief pause, he motions to her side and smiles lightly, “I see you’ve brought your own as well.”

Aki turns to look and indeed a bloody red box of the same size sits on the table in near proximity to her. A bead of cold sweat rolls down her face. In any other situation, she would want to know what’s inside the box, but not in this one. If she can get through the game without once looking into it, she would be more than satisfied.

“I’ll start,” she declares and once again impresses herself with how detached she’s managed to make herself sound.

She holds up the foam gun at his face and four shadows gather to her left.

“Jury’s here,” he pipes up.

“Doesn’t seem so fair that I have to appeal to a bunch of your friends.”

“They are strangers to me, too,” he explains. “Souls of individuals long passed; very passionate in their convictions, just like you and I.”

“I wouldn’t compare myself to you,” she says. “You’re a murderer. You come across people you don’t like and with a snap of your fingers, they’re gone.”

“I don’t kill. My… targets can corroborate that if you actually bothered to find out what became of them,” he says. “They’re not the same as they were and they never will be, yes. But, even lying still in their hospital beds, they’re still breathing, still alive, and may still one day walk out of those rooms.”

One of the hooded figures raises their hand, but the other three remain still.

 _Fine._ She lowers her gun.

“My turn now.” He aims at her and the shadow court moves to hiss left. “You’re responsible for the murder of Tetsu Ushio.”

She chortles, he grimaces. “Just when I think you people can’t sink any lower, you hurl the pettiest lie I’ve ever heard right at my face.”

“I’m not done,” he hisses. “Ushio was never popular with anyone. He had connections and wanted a promotion. He was not above dirty tactics or manipulation, and he certainly wasn’t above tattling. If he got his hands on the right kind of dirt – say the kind that involves your partner’s shady business practices – then he would not have hesitated to bring that information to the people you prefer ignorant. For the right price, naturally.”

She mouths every word he speaks underneath her mask and smiles. “For the right price, naturally,” she parrots, and for a microsecond, she swears she sees him flinch. “I could not have murdered Ushio for I never met him before. At most, I had just heard about him. Certain… _incriminating_ things.”

“What incriminating things?”

“That he was nothing but a lowly bully picking on the weak,” she says. “Come to think about it, didn’t little Yugi have an altercation with him once?”

The shadowy figures fidget and light, indistinguishable whispers flit among them.

“He did,” the other Yugi whispers.

None of the shadows raise their hands. He holds his breath and stiffly places his gun on the table. “I end my turn.”

Aki aims at him, the shadows back on her left. “So little Yugi had an altercation with Ushio and he was found dead yesterday morning. Whatever killed him was internal,” she says. “That’s all I had heard. You seem to be fully convinced it was a murder, though. Why? Do you know something? You said you leave your victims lying still in beds. That’s a way of saying they’re comatose,” she can imagine hearing the gun click. “Did you mean to leave him comatose and messed up?”

“I gain nothing from punishing an innocent,” he replies in a low, breathless voice. “It only serves to give the guilty another opportunity to hurt my partner and those around him. I’m not scapegoating you. I wouldn’t do that to anyone.”

“You would do anything to protect your partner. I know that much.”

“Do you, now?” He pauses. “Yes. I believe you do.”

_Crap. He didn’t need to know that. Pick it back up, pick it back up!_

“So you admit it, then,” she claims. “You would do anything to protect Yugi.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll do everything,” he says. “Some remedies are worse than the problem they aim to fix. Placing any blame of my own on you will just motivate you into making a target out of my partner.”

Two hands raise, two don’t – the jury’s divided.

A clinking sound echoes. Before her card are three coins. One side sports the same eye as his gaudy pendant; the other is blank.

“If I miss by two or three, you get your shot,” he explains. “If I only miss by one, then both of us get the shot.”

“And if you don’t miss any?”

“I get the shot.”

She rests her hand over one of the coins. “Call it.”

“Tails.”

She flips the first one: heads. He shuts his eyes.

She flips the second one: tails. She sucks in air.

She flips the third one: tails.

A single gunshot is heard. She’s clutching her right shoulder and he’s clutching his left. It’s a wild, scorching sensation, but there’s no blood or wound when she removes her hand to inspect the damage.

The other Yugi picks his gun back up. “Don’t worry,” he speaks breathlessly. “I would not start a game where my host body would suffer permanent damage.”

She wants to say something to that, but she can still hear the gunshot ringing in her right ear.

“Dirty trick,” she mutters. She’s not sure if he hears it or not. He may have been too distracted by his own pain or she may have been speaking too low. “Every single one of you. All you ever have are dirty tricks up your sleeves to scare us for not fitting in and then throwing your hands up with self-affirmation when we choose to defend ourselves.”

He’s quiet. She’s certain he’s heard her now, but he doesn’t respond or react beyond a blank stare and his foam gun aimed at her face again. “Aki Izayoi, do you blind yourself from your own sins so that you may hurt indiscriminately?”

She stiffens. “I do.”

“How much do you block? Your victims’ faces? Their voices and names? The full extent of your actions?” he asks. “If asked you to describe what you did to your most recent victim in full detail, can you?”

“I can,” she says. “He” – she pauses for a single second – “was in a gang and they were fighting another gang. He grabbed hold of a kid who shouldn’t have been there toting a gun and wearing a jacket with the other gang’s insignia emblazoned on it, but so he was. The guy offered to let him choose how he would hurt him, so I stepped in and commanded him to top. Then he threatened me and I did him in.”

No show of hands from the shadows.

The other Yugi pulls back his cut-out as if to end his turn, but irritation flickers across his eyes and he aims again.

“What did you say to the kid?” Dead silence. “What. Did you say. To the kid?”

“If I see anyone wearing the same jacket as yours again, and they’re causing trouble, I’ll do the same to them. No matter who they are,” she answers.

A dark hand raises within the jury.

“But you yourself said that kid shouldn’t be there,” the other Yugi replies.

“There are always alternatives. He still made this choice.”

Another raises.

“You made a questionable choice, too.”

“He chose to go around, taking what he wanted, destroying what he didn’t and terrorizing people senselessly.”

“And _you_ haven’t?”

A third hand raises.

She has no counter-argument.

He stands from his chair and looks down upon her from behind a gun that is looking more and more real than it should.

She places her hand over her card – the same blank card she had at the beginning of the game.

“Hypocrite,” he snarls.

Blood boils through her veins and she stops herself short of yelling at him. She flips the card.

**‘IT’S MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT.’**

He blinks and withdraws the gun. She draws another blank card and places it face-down before her. Every fiber of her being is burning up and raring to go as she watches him sit back down with absolute confusion. The second he’s settled in his chair, she pulls her gun out and motions her index finger pulling on the non-existent trigger.

Another gunshot.

He’s stunned speechless. An unholy terror creeps into his eyes as he hesitantly turns his head back and sees that yes, there is indeed a smoking gun hole on the wall behind him, precisely on the spot she shot.

“You can make the game real,” he whispers in horror and indignation.

“You want to talk about hypocrisy?” she hisses.

“Izayoi, wait. We need to stop,” he says. “My partner, the other me. He did nothing wrong. I won’t allow him to be harmed.”

“That’s funny,” she says. “ _My_ partner is safe and sound, back home, waiting for me to get back safely. Because I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m fighting my own fights and even a few other people’s fights, just to survive. And yet you impede me and accuse me of things I haven’t done, things you very well could have done yourself. We have very similar beliefs – according to you at least – yet you act as if you’re allowed to judge me. Then you call me a hypocrite when I try to judge what I do know. But the worst I’ve done is protect my own and the best you’ve done is admit that you’ve exposed yours to the danger you went seeking on your own.”

Four hands raise. His hand shakes as he flips his card.

**‘HE HAS ENDANGERED HIS HOST FOR HIS VICE.’**

“Izayoi–!”

One more gunshot. This time around a bloody scream escapes him and a flurry of rose petals are scattered all around him: on the table, on his card, on his lap, on the floor behind his chair. He’s clutching his chest and his eyes shoot daggers at her. He removes his hand from his chest, a handful of rose petals spilling out. There’s a hole in his chest, near his – _Yugi’s_ – heart. No blood pours out; only more petals.

“It’s not fully real,” she admits. “But it’s still real enough.”

He draws another card, lifts his gun and aims. Or rather, tries to aim. It’s a little difficult to do when you feel like you’re dying where you sit.

“You just shot someone you know is innocent.”

Four hands to her left raise.

“I shot _you,_ ” she snaps back. “You wanted this game.”

Three go down.

“Not like this. And,” he swallows hard, “not just because of Yugi or myself, but because of you as well. I keep telling you” – he takes a deep breath – “I’m not a killer.”

One goes back up.

“And you think I am?”

“I don’t know what you are,” he admits in-between shaky breaths. “I thought I did, but maybe I was wrong.”

All hands are down.

“You’re a bully,” she spits.

Two hands raise again.

“Maybe we should work together.”

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that first,” she says. “Not that I would have agreed to it anyway. I’m not here for you. I am here for those who have been abandoned by society.”

“We could work together for Yugi’s sake, then,” he says.

“Are you only saying that so I won’t try to win the game?”

He shakes his head. “Even if I lose, the door of darkness won’t open for those who aren’t guilty. And if I _am_ guilty, it’s me and not Yugi.”

“But I can still end the game with a very real shot,” Aki reminds him.

He swallows. “You’d regret hurting him.”

“Would I?” she taunts.

She realizes she had lost track of the jury. Three in favor at the moment, it seems. Perhaps it would be best if she admits to regret. Because maybe she _would_ regret hurting Yugi; he’s innocent and perhaps the closest thing she has to a friend outside of Divine.

“I want to believe you would,” he says.

It’s shocking that the anger has bled out of him faster than his life. She can’t make any sense of it.

“Maybe I would,” she whispers. “And maybe he could come join me at the Arcadia Movement alongside you. We could help others like him.”

His eyes widen with a flicker of realization.

“He’s using you.”

A chill runs up her spine. “What?”

“Aki, he’s using you,” he says. “Like you said, he’s safe and found back home while you’ve gone missing and he hasn’t made a single effort to come find you. He may very well be expecting you to be taking the fall right now.”

“You’re lying!” Her voice sounds more like her own now, but with all the rage she’s never allowed herself to show.

“Aki, let’s stop the game,” he proposes, dropping his armed hand to his side. “I was wrong. The door of darkness will not open for either of us and the danger from the gunshots–”

“No!” she yells.

“We can stop him together–”

“I will end you and Yugi both if you even breathe in Divine’s vicinity,” she threatens.

Four hands up.

She’s glowering at him, and despite the mask, she knows he can tell. He’s frozen shut. Hesitantly, he lifts his hand back up at her. The other Yugi swallows hard and screws his eyes shut. As if possessed by some otherworldly being, she flips the card and slams it on the table.

**‘HER REGRET PALES IN COMPARISON TO HER RAGE.’**

He shoots. She chokes back the pain.

More rose petals have scattered all around them. A gaping hole has appeared on her left arm.

She draws another card and aims the gun at him. It doesn’t feel like foam anymore. Strange shadows blur its shape and she swears it feels like the real deal in her hand.

The other Yugi is hunched over the table, looking paler than usual. His breathing is labored. More rose petals than before surround him and cover the table.

“You brought me here to bully me into taking the fall for the murder of Ushio and in the hopes of hurting my partner,” she claims.

Four shadows raise their hands.

“I came to learn what became of Ushio because whoever got to him tried to frame the Mutos,” he answers.

Three lower their hands.

“You brought me here to blame me for it even though I’m innocent.”

“I was wrong,” he says.

Two more for a total of three votes.

“Then it’s over.”

“You want to shoot me, fine,” he chokes out and forces himself to his feet. “But after this, I’m coming back. _For_ you, not after you.”

Aki swears she can see red. Actual, literal, bloody red. She leaps to her feet.

“Just flip the damn card!”

He flips it.

**‘NO PROOF FOR NOW, BUT STAY ON ALERT.’**

_No._

“Aki, don’t.”

But she does.

She takes the shot and the invisible bullet pierces a hole right through his throat, then rounds about and enters through her back and exits through her chest.

They both collapse on the floor, a rain of rose petals gently following their fall.

The table has been flipped over and the boxes lie on the floor. She only heard them fall, though. They’re out of her line of sight and she can’t move. He’s fallen on his back and she on her side.

She can tell he’s unconscious by the haze over his eyes.

She can feel her own vision fading.


End file.
